The Girl Behind the Symbol
by onetraveller
Summary: Blonde hair, blue eyes, Margaret knows exactly what she is doing when she puts the pin in the strong, jaded brunette's hands. She knows that she is ruining the girl's life. But she must. Madge's last moments, and her recollections on the pin scene.


She is the girl behind the symbol.

Her name is Madge Undersee, and she is the girl who incites the rebellion.

Blonde hair, blue eyes, Margaret knows exactly what she is doing when she puts the pin in the strong, jaded brunette's hands. She knows that she is ruining the girl's life. But she must.

If it's not her, then it has to be this girl.

With her sharp grey eyes, black hair, and angled features. This girl will save them all.

No, she hasn't asked this girl if she's prepared, if she's willing. But, this is war. Even if no one has gotten it through their heads, she knows. She can feel it under her feet, in the carefully printed papers her father receives from the Capitol. It is there. And it is struggling to stay afloat.

She hasn't asked her if she is prepared to die.

Because she will.

Madge is as sure of it as the blood coursing through her veins.

She will be killed in the arena, or war will kill her in more ways than one.

She remembers walking through the town and finding herself in a back alleyway with Haymitch, looking at him with an (almost) pleading look.

"For fuck's sake, stop with the fucking wounded alcoholic act. You're not an innocent player here."

His eyes widen. Pretty little Margaret Undersee with her bright blue eyes, and shining golden hair swearing like a sailor.

He tells her he'll consider it, and she lets out a breath of relief.

When Katniss comes back, face haunted, eyes more jaded than before, Madge is eaten alive by the guilt. Every glimpse of her sends a fresh stab of pain and guilt through her heart, and she has to remind herself things must be sacrificed for the greater good. It will destroy, but it is a necessity. Still, she buries her face in her pillow and screams until her voice is hoarse and her eyes are bloodshot.

She feigns ignorance when Katniss asks her about the mockingjay.

Just a bird.

Just a bird that inspired thousands of people to fight.

Margaret Undersee knows exactly what she's doing when she pins that Mockingjay on Katniss.

She gives her a death sentence in the palm of her pretty little, milky white hand.

When the bombs hit, all she sees is fire and body bits blasted into pieces and she is tempted – oh so tempted – to fall to the ground and succumb to the flames, to the terror, to the guilt that eats away at her every second of every minute of every day.

But underneath her pretty little face she is a fighter. So she runs. She runs as far as her feet will carry her and she is afraid it is not enough. She grabs a hold of a dark hand, finds herself looking into the grey eyes of Gale Hawthorne and she screams. Screams, screams, screams, and he is there and he is screaming at her too.

"YOU HAVE TO RUN!"

And she's standing there, shaking her head, holding his hand so tightly, but she can't. She is frozen. It feels like years as she stands there screaming sorry, sorry, good god, I'm so sorry, sorry, sorry but in reality it is only a moment. He yanks her, pushes her into the crowd and does the same with the people that keep on coming.

She runs against the current, because the least she can do is help these people she's doomed. She picks up children inside of burning homes and tells them to run as fast as they can in that direction, this direction, that way.

She tells them to run, assures them she'll be coming as she makes her way further and further into the district. When she's standing in the middle of flames ten feet high she's ready to succumb, to close her eyes and lie down. She hears a child's cry, calling for her mother. And the voice is so like her own, begging for her mother to come and play that she runs inside, hair singed off, shoes long gone, hands raw and bloody and picks up a little blonde child with blue eyes and she runs like she has never run before. The explosions go off right behind her and she presses into the ground harder because she must save this child – a justification to everything that she has done. She runs into Gale Hawthorne – again – and presses the child into her arms.

"Look, I know you don't care about me, but please, please just take this little girl with you. And run! There's no more you can help, I've seen it. Just make sure she's safe, okay?"

His eyes are bewildered as they take in her burn marks and bloody hands and bare feet.

"You have to come. I'll carry her. Come on."

He grabs her arm, still holding the little girl.

"I can't. I'm sorry. I can't."

"What do you mean, you can't? This is not a time to be an idiot! Let's go!"

He takes the little girl, and grabs her arm harder this time.

"I've inhaled too much smoke – it's not worth it. Please, just go."

Her voice is calm for the situation and she pushes him staining his shirt with blood. He's shaking his head.

"No. No. You have to come. Katniss's mother can fix you. Please. … Katniss will kill me if I don't bring you," he adds, confused and desperate. "PLEASE JUST RUN!"

He grabs her arm and yanks her forward and she stops fighting knowing the inevitable will come.

They run into the woods – the last ones – together. She craves human warmth and she buries her face into his shoulder as they watch their home go up in flames and ash.

She knows her case is futile, but he insists, shaking his head, dragging Mrs. Everdeen by the hand to where she is.

"Gale. I don't have anything – I can't do anything. She – I'm sorry – Madge, I – I'm so sorry."

She knows this, but it still hurts, and she's still scared.

She may as well tell someone. She sits beneath a tree, resting her head against it, coughing every two minutes.

"I know you don't like me and I don't blame you – no, it's okay, please, just listen – I should tell someone this. I gave that pin to Katniss knowing she was either going to die with it on, or she was going to win. Both would trigger something. I've hurt her, and I'm sorry, but please – listen, just listen for a moment – it had to be done, if not Katniss, someone else. If we want a future our kids can live in, we need to make sacrifices, and they are going to be harsh and dire, but we must. This is war, and I'm so, so, sorry but I had to do it. I had to do it. I'm sorry," she says all of this in between coughs and holding back screams of pain.

"Promise me one thing. Promise me that you're going to fight with everything you have Gale. Please. I don't know you, and I never will but I know you know what has to be done. Fight with everything you have, and then help them, help them to make sure this – this world doesn't happen again," she clutches his hand, tainting it with her blood.

He looks at her and nods, admiration, and sadness seeping into them.

"I promise."

"One more thing." She looks up at him, blue to grey and holds his hand again, inexplicably craving human touch. His face is splotched with soot, his jacket faded and torn in places, cuts across his arm, burns, but Madge thinks he's never looked more beautiful.

"Can you stay here?"

He nods. She smiles a little. Her dying wish. How heroic.

He sits there for a few minutes, leaning against a tree and when she shivers he takes his jacket off and places it around her.

"I'm sorry for judging you. I'm so sorry, god, Madge, I had no idea – I always thought you were some stuck-up, ignorant – the point is," he says, looking at her straight in the eye, with an almost fearful intensity, "I'm sorry. I'm so goddamn sorry. And I promise you I will fight, I promise."

And perhaps it's the whole apocalyptic thing or years of answering the door to strawberries, or his blazing eyes or her tiny little unrequited crush but she leans in and kisses him. And when she does, he does not pull away but kisses her harder and she can feel salt on her lips and she looks up to see him with tears in his eyes.

"It's not your fault. The best thing you can do for me is keep that promise."

He kisses her again, deeper this time, and she finds herself crying. It's not fair, she thinks, the moment you realize you can find a way back to sanity and happiness you're going to die. She's had the natural human fears for death – but the prospect has always been in the back of her mind, and she had accepted it when she walked into the fire – but now she wants to take all those actions back and she wants to have just run. She doesn't want to die.

"Might as well tell you I had a little crush on you, right?"

He laughs against her lips, tear tracks on his face.

She leans in and closes her eyes and the last words she hears is "I promise" and the last thing she feels is his lips, and his hands. And she knows, she knows that what she did was the right thing, and she knows that she needed to have done it and in some way or another he's going to make sure it was the right thing.

And then the world goes black.


End file.
